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Iranian business still active in UAE despite US ‘Economic D-Day’: WSJ

Al Mayadeen | August 28, 2026

Iranian commercial and financial activity continues across Dubai despite Washington’s push to sharply restrict Tehran’s access to regional markets and financial networks, The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to the newspaper, Iranian banks, airlines, restaurants, and businesses remain active in the United Arab Emirates even after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced what he called an “Economic D-Day” campaign aimed at countries and companies maintaining economic links with Iran.

Bessent had specifically demanded the closure of overseas branches of Bank Melli Iran, but the bank’s operations in Dubai appeared unchanged this week.

At one Bank Melli branch in Dubai’s old city, around a dozen tellers were continuing to serve Farsi-speaking customers, according to the report. Employees said they had received no instructions ordering the branch to cease operations.

“We put our trust in God on what happens next,” an Iranian bank employee said.

Bank Melli has operated in the UAE since 1969 and currently maintains two branches in Dubai.

US waves secondary sanctions

The continued activity comes despite the UAE Foreign Ministry announcing last week that the country was suspending trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran amid mounting US pressure.

Washington has warned governments and companies that continued dealings with Tehran could expose them to secondary sanctions.

“It is no longer acceptable to operate in the gray spaces of this conflict,” Bessent said. “These measures broaden secondary sanctions risk for anyone foolish enough to continue conducting business with this regime.”

Iranian economic networks remain embedded in Dubai

According to the WSJ, the gap between the public announcements and conditions on the ground reflects the depth of economic ties connecting Iran and the UAE, particularly Dubai.

Iranian businesses have operated in the emirate for decades, while hundreds of thousands of Iranians are believed to live in the UAE and use Dubai as an important gateway to international finance and trade.

Iranian airlines also continue to operate direct services between Iran and the Emirates. UAE carriers Emirates, Etihad, and FlyDubai are not currently flying directly to Iranian destinations, although some reportedly continue to use Iranian airspace.

The newspaper also found Iranian restaurants and cafes operating normally in Dubai, with Iranian residents interacting openly with Emirati customers.

Earlier restrictions eased

Some restrictions imposed earlier in the year appear to have eased as well.

During a broader crackdown in the spring, UAE authorities closed the Iranian Hospital and Iranian Club, temporarily restricted Iranian passport holders from entering or transiting the country and revoked visas belonging to some Iranian residents.

The hospital and club remain closed, but Iranians interviewed by the newspaper said widespread visa cancellations appear to have stopped and some previously withdrawn visas have since been restored.

Iranian residents are nevertheless preparing for the possibility of tighter financial restrictions. Some told the newspaper they could turn to the traditional hawala transfer system if formal banking links with Iran are eventually disrupted.

Severing Iran-UAE trade seen as difficult

Economic ties between the two countries are extensive.

Around $28 billion in trade passed between Iran and the UAE in 2024, according to World Trade Organization figures cited by the newspaper.

Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow at Chatham House, said the economic relationship cannot easily be dismantled.

“The Gulf Arab state economies are so closely integrated and intertwined with the Iranian economy, you can’t just simply sever economic trade and activity overnight,” Quilliam said. “The U.A.E., and Dubai in particular, have always managed to continue to do trade, even when the maximum pressure is on. Cutting off that trade will be cutting off their nose, basically.”

Dubai has also long been identified by US authorities as a major center for financial activity linked to Iran.

The UAE also hosts the second-largest number of individuals and companies sanctioned by the US Treasury over alleged Iran-related activity after China, according to Levitt.

Washington faces competing interests in UAE

The report noted that pushing Abu Dhabi to fully sever its economic relationship with Tehran could create complications for Washington because of the UAE’s broader strategic importance to the United States.

The Emirates hosts US military facilities, maintains close security relations with Washington, and was the first Gulf Arab state to sign the US-brokered “Abraham Accords” establishing formal diplomatic relations with “Israel”.

The country has also emerged as a major source of investment in US sectors including artificial intelligence.

Those interests give Washington incentives to preserve strong relations with Abu Dhabi even as it demands tougher enforcement against Iranian commercial networks.

For Emirati authorities, maintaining some economic channels with Iran may also be viewed as a means of reducing regional tensions.

“There will be some in the U.A.E. who say, ‘Whatever the price of calm, that is what we need to do,’ ” Levitt said. “Better to do that by allowing them to access banking and supply chains through our country than not,” he said of the Emirates’ thinking on Iran.

Dubai faces an additional economic calculation because, unlike oil-rich Abu Dhabi, its economy relies heavily on trade, finance, tourism, and international capital flows.

The WSJ report therefore suggests that despite Washington’s escalating sanctions threats and the UAE’s public commitment to restrict economic links with Tehran, deeply established Iranian financial and commercial networks in Dubai remain difficult to dismantle.

August 28, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on Iranian business still active in UAE despite US ‘Economic D-Day’: WSJ

‘Ideological cover for war’: Anti-imperialist scholars condemn Guardian open letter over Iran

Press TV – August 28, 2026

The Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective (AISC) has strongly condemned an open letter published by The Guardian, noting that its Western academics and signatories have distorted history and provided “ideological cover” for the intensification of the war against Iran.

In a detailed response, the collective said the August 20 letter creates a “false and dangerous equivalence” between the defensive measures of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the aggressive acts of the United States and Israel, which it described as “the most powerful and genocidal imperialist forces in world history.”

It added that the letter fails to place Iran’s current circumstances within the longer history of imperialist intervention in the region.

“The letter distorts history, obfuscates the current geopolitical conjuncture, and provides ideological cover for the intensification of the ongoing war against Iran,” highlighted the collective.

The AISC said the letter refers to several historical events without providing sufficient analysis, context or citations. It particularly slammed the absence of Iran’s support for the Palestinian cause and said the letter overlooked decades of intervention involving coup attempts, wars, mercenaries, information warfare, sanctions, economic pressure and sabotage by the US-led imperialism.

Instead, the collective said, the letter offers only a “deracinated acknowledgement” of the 1953 US-backed coup and a vague reference to the 1988 executions in Iran.

The AISC said the historical omissions were particularly significant given the continuing US-led pressure campaign against Iran.

“As US imperialism accelerates and the resistance against it strengthens, the battle of ideas continues to intensify,” the collective said, adding that anti-imperialist intellectuals have a responsibility to be “rigorous and vigilant.”

It said the circumstances surrounding The Guardian letter also raised questions, noting that, at the time of its response, the authors remained obscured and the social media page that had originally posted the letter had been erased. The collective described the document as an “alarming, pro-imperialist document.”

AISC challenges the letter’s account of Iran’s history

A central part of the response concerns the Iran-Iraq War and the events surrounding the 1988 executions.

The collective noted that Iran was fighting a US-backed Iraq after the Iraqi invasion of 1980, which was carried out at the behest of Washington. It said the war had a wider objective of “balkanizing “Iran, toppling the Islamic Republic and regaining control over the country’s state and resources.

The AISC also highlighted the role of the Mujahideen-e Khalq, or MKO terrorist group, in the final stages of the war. It said the group, funded and trained by the US and Israel, joined Iraqi forces in an ultimately failed operation to invade Iran, referring to the July 1988 incursion of terrorists from Western borders, which was defeated within days under Operation Mersad.

Against this backdrop, the collective disputed The Guardian letter’s treatment of the 1988 executions, noting that the executions largely targeted terrorist MKO members who had participated in operations against Iran.

“Neither the US nor Israel have ever given up on destroying Iran, in no small part because of the anti-zionism of the Islamic Republic and its defense of Palestine,” it added.

The response further noted that the historical experience of the Iran-Iraq War shaped Iran’s approach to national defense, scientific development and economic self-reliance.

The collective rejected the letter’s call for the release of individuals involved in January riots, noting that riots were an “urban warfare campaign led by Mossad and CIA-backed mercenaries.” It added that concealing that history turns The Guardian letter into “a form of academic counterinsurgency.”

The AISC then questioned the timing of the letter.

The collective pointed to the signing as coming after the deliberate US-Israeli attacks on Iran’s hospitals, pharmaceutical clinics, bridges, food and water storage facilities, and schools during the war that aggressors launched on February 28. It specifically named the attack on Shajareh Tayyebeh School in Minab, where 168 children and staff were massacred in a double-tap strike.

It said the letter was published on the same day the United States announced what it called “crushing economic warfare” against Iran.

‘Treacherous statement’

The AISC also slammed the signatories themselves, saying their actions reflected “a carelessness that is troubling.”

It said that many of the academics publicly support Palestine but had nevertheless signed a letter condemning Iran, which the collective described as the only country that “actively and materially supports the Palestinian resistance.”

The response said some signatories subsequently claimed they had not read the letter carefully, had been confused by its creation or had been misled during the process of collecting signatures.

The AISC said it was particularly concerned that the signatories had not identified the authors of the statement or explained how their signatures were obtained.

“We are dismayed that the signatories still refuse to name the authors of this treacherous statement and how their signatures were acquired, despite claiming to have been hoodwinked by them,” the collective said.

The collective said it expects the intellectuals who signed the letter to approach the issue with “clarity, urgency, and intellectual rigor,” adding that if the signatories are incapable of that, “silence is always an option.”

See also:

A response to The Guardian’s open letter: Opposing the war on Iran means rejecting war propaganda

By Carlos Martinez | Press TV | August 24, 2026

The Guardian has published an open letter to Iran’s “political prisoners,” signed by Angela Davis, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Rashid Khalidi, Robin DG Kelley, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Judith Butler, and Walden Bello, among others (although Kelley has since withdrawn his signature, and there is considerable doubt that Mumia Abu-Jamal knowingly lent his name to the venture). … continue

August 28, 2026 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Comments Off on ‘Ideological cover for war’: Anti-imperialist scholars condemn Guardian open letter over Iran